Wait for Me

“The police took Selim away. Before leaving, he hugged Leyla one last time and whispered in her ear, ‘Be strong, Leyla. This too shall pass.’ But they both knew that difficult and uncertain days lay ahead. Selim’s absence permeated every corner of the house, piercing Leyla’s heart like a silent scream. Everything had changed in an instant; they had reached a point of no return, standing on the edge of a precipice, the fall had begun.”

A story of love and resistance. Set in Ankara, Istanbul and Stockholm during the 1970s and ’80s, Livaneli’s latest novel tells his own story in a breathtaking way.

Leyla and Selim struggle to build a life together with the passion of love, but find themselves caught up in various difficulties and separations. On one side, the anxiety of reuniting; on the other, the struggle for freedom pulls them in different directions throughout the novel. Their love will fuel their resistance, and their resistance will strengthen their love.

Woven with love, friendship, family ties, and the passion for freedom, Wait for Me is a novel about the hardships endured on a country’s path to freedom, the struggle against oppression, resistance, abandonment, and solidarity.